نشریه فرهنگ و ادبیات عامه
پیاپی 31 (فروردین و اردیبهشت 1399)

Iranians struggled to change their destiny in the hard times of their history through resistance and sometimes peace and reconciliation. In the meantime, besides the continued efforts of the elite class, public efforts must also be made to bring about a favorable situation for coexistence with the ruling class. The less educated people whose idealistic minds were embracing historical reality to view events more easily, grasped the imagination and the legend, and continued to live their lives by building new ideas. The legend of the Mongolian Girl which comes from the days of the Mongols' domination of Iran, is an example of a compensatory imagination through the themes of love and marriage. It is full of faith and stability, the reconciliation and oneness between the two sides, going beyond the lost sovereignty and authority of Iran in the Mongols over a wide geographical range from east to west. The research method is descriptive-analytical.

In Ferdowsi and his contemporaries' view, Shahnameh was not merely a literary and poetic work. In fact, it was a scientific and historical writing about the monarchical dynasties and traditions of Iranian real history. With the advent of archaeological sciences, the real history of Iran was distinguished from epic and mythical, so far, the history of Shahnameh and its counterparts has been called unrealistic and this raised the question in the Iranian societies: Is it all real or is it all fantasy? To answer this question, one way is to find evidence that could be be felt, seen and understood, in other words, discovering places or buildings which are related to Shahnameh and myths, there might have been many other places during the millenniums, which are either forgotten or kept unknown, places which have been more mythical and epic rather than historically or naturally real. In this paper, 25 of such places will be focused and analyzed considering the oral and folklore evidence about people's beliefs. Finally, the findings will be discussed

Fertility is known as a biological phenomenon. The diversity and proliferation of the popular belief suggest the importance of this issue in popular culture discourse. In different periods, the reflection of the hidden aspect of fertility has been disputed with respect to the culture of society in most cases. In this study, it has been tried to identify and study the ceremonies and rituals associated with birth in Bushehr province considering multi - ethnic groups. The characteristics of child sex, sexual preference, infertility solutions, and the mother – child relationship during and after birth and other interactions between women and childbearing are particularly focused. Following other ethnographic studies, the field method was borrowed as the research method, and in order to eliminate the defects and possible shortcomings from the combination of methods, the direct observation and interviews with women and local midwives were to analyze the ethnological structural and normative explanation. Moreover, the religious attitudes and cultural foundations of rites of passage and fertility rituals were investigated based on sympathetic magic theories, the survival of the fittest, rites of passage, Social contagion and stigmatization. The results show that the representation of rituals is necessary in order to know the cultural past of the regions and its structural and normative explanation regarding the development process and the high migration potential of the province.

In the archetype of sacrifice, the element of sacrifice is chosen according to the type of culture, religion, livelihood, etc. Cow, as an ancient myth in the mythological story of genesis in Iran is a prominent element of sacrifice and this was an important part of the ritual. Through shedding cow's blood, the earth was revived, and through eating his flesh, the followers of the religion could be immortal. However, after Zoroastrianism, several reasons such as opposition to symbols of Mythraism propagating monotheism, and the necessity of settlement and development of civilization, the sacrifice of cow was opposed, and Zoroastrianism respected its life, but there have been reports of sacrificing cows in Zoroastrianism, suggesting the need to carry out this ritual, to help the fertility of the land and reviving the life cycle. Nevertheless, the reaction Zoroastrianism showed to the sacrifice of cow shifted the myth of immortality and protecting earth to a new level, and rationalized the mythological themes. This study, accordingly, analyzes the archetype of sacrificing cow in Mithraism and Zoroastrianism borrowing Jung's theory and a descriptive-analytic research method.

A detail study of the tales can provide a rich understanding of beliefs, thoughts, way of living, totems, myths, and the old patterns of a nation. A good example of such tales which has never been recorded in any written source is the tale Tree of Life common in Kohmare Sorkhi area of Fars province in Iran. This tale is, somehow, intermingled with mythical motifs; therefore, it is difficult to determine the accurate boundary between tale and myth. The aim of the study, however, is to investigate these motifs in this tale. To accomplish this, this tale was registered and recorded out of different narrators borrowing a field method study as the research method; secondly, the mythical motifs were addressed with an analytical-descriptive method. The findings of the study showed that several main motifs formed the fundamental pivots of the tale: 1) the hero of the tale saves the sources of birth- cow, girl, and rain-producing clouds- from the evil forces, and restores happiness and safety, 2) the hero and his companions overcome the six adventures to return home, 3) the hero of the tale moves towards the tree of life- pomegranate tree- which is at the center of the world and plucks the fruit after imprisoning the guard of the tree, 4) the pomegranate and fig trees are posed as fertility symbols in the tale. The myth of fertility and the attempt of the hero to reach the fertility fruits is one of the main pivots of the story, and 5) the oracle appears in the role of the guide and leader of the hero.

Although proverbs possess clear, logical and semantic structures, the use of some rhetorical elements has, in addition to making the proverbs more beautiful and effective, given depth and strength to their concepts and made them more reflective.  One of these elements is the "symbol". In this article, we will illustrate the symbolic role of animals in proverbs. The purpose of this study is to analyze the quality and quantity of applying animal symbols in proverbs and the number of animal symbols used in making proverbs. The main body of the paper presents the statistical charts and analysis of examples of proverbs listing the various animal names in the subgroups of domestic animals, non-domestic animals, birds and insects.The present study is a library research and has been conducted based on a descriptive-analytical approach while implementing statistical methods by studying 6047 proverbs used in the Bahmanyari Story Book. In the end, it was found that, quantitatively, maximum animal symbols  used include domestic animals with a percentage of 48.6 and the lowest frequency of animal symbols belong to the birds' group with a percentage of 8.7. The major reasons for using animal symbols in proverbs may be pointed out as making abstract concepts objective and more tangible, making proverbs attractive, brevity of speech, and avoiding direct vulgar and sarcastic address

In Bakhtiari culture, hunting has been one of the most important methods for preparing food. Hence, hunters have gained a special place in that culture. Furthermore, different poems have been composed for remembering hunters in this culture. Most of the hunting customs are reflected in these poems. Thus, analyzing them could reveal significant points about Bakhtiari culture. The aim of this study is to content analyze hunting poems in Bakhtiari culture based on document analysis. Issues like hunting tools, honors, tactics and hunting methods, hunting season, the role of hunting in preparing food, and related believes are investigated in this regard. The findings indicate that hunting poems are divided into two branches, Sarkohi and hunters' mourning. They show hunters' feelings and tactics as well as catering for the environment and species in simple words.

This study aims to analyze the attitude and use of ritual poems in different rituals. The instrument to collect the related data was a research-made questionnaire. It consisted of 26 items on the attitude and use of Sistani poems in different rituals. To test the reliability of the questionnaire, the Cronbach alpha was administered. the population was all individuals above 20 in Zabol city and its surrounding villages. The research sample, though, was 384 individuals based on Morgan's sampling table. This was done through random sampling. To test the hypothesis, the Chi-square was employed in SPSS software. The findings indicate that the participants have a positive attitude to ritual poems, but do not use them in their rituals as before.

Following the pragmatist perspective regarding the development of sociological approaches, Lucian Goldman's Theory of Generic Structuralism analyzes literary texts as a social institution. According to this theory, the work of a writer, in the final analysis, is primarily the result of the desires and aspirations of a social class. In Goldman's view, a literary text, in dual function, is influenced by a variety of economic, social, and ideological hypertexts, and on the other hand, with respect to the contradictions in objective reality, it affects the hypertext. Proverbs, especially with regard to the historical-class experiences and their longevity, are a sound basis for literary exploration with a Generic Structuralism approach. This study, bearing a descriptive-analytical approach, examines proverbs and has shown the validity of this theory in a number of literary propositions. The study, as one of the first attempts that has taken the theory from the field of one or more coherent works into the historical-applied range of literary proverbs, shows how proverbs in terms of its concise and affective nature, are used by both the upper and lower social classes, and act as a means of achieving interests. The study reveals the link between hypertext and form, the expression of two types of hypertexts, and the examination of conceptual contradictions even in a historical period.

Ajaib-Nname is written document from the fifth to twelfth centuries. This study hypothesizes that there is a relationship between Ajaib-nameh and mythological views. To text it, eight texts of this genre were described and analyzed. Using Foucault's theory of genealogy, it was revealed that collective imagination in Ajaib-nameh has a relationship with the quasi-mythological motifs, despite the former's methods and objectives. The evolution of these texts has been explained in three distinct eras, including the geography-based era, the narrative era, and time-based era. The intensity and weakness of imagination in these texts are highlighted in three colors: yellow, orange and dark red.